Practised
by Awdures
Summary: Tony Stark does not make the kind of hostage that Steve Rogers would have expected. (MCU. Set after Age of Ultron and Before Civil War)


_I changed my mind about the timeine position of this at least three times, but it's at some point between Age of Ultron and Civil War. At least I hope it is and I haven't left any evidence of the rewrites in there!_

* * *

Steve rocketed back into consciousness all at once and was his feet again in a moment, eyes tracking for Tony who'd been out cold when their attackers had hauled him from the suit. There hadn't been time to even process that – surely it shouldn't have been possible – before he'd gone down too.

His eyes locked on a small gaggle of men who were fuzzily familiar and Steve launched himself on instinct towards them only to find himself thrown backwards onto the floor, his nose bleeding and radiating pain over his whole face.

"Forcefield." It was Tony's voice. "I did wonder why they seemed so unconcerned with leaving you in a heap over there."

Steve picked himself up. Tony was on his feet and in spite of a blooming black eye and a slight tension to his body which suggested he wasn't entirely uninjured, he sounded considerably more exasperated than intimidated as he returned his attention to their captors who surrounded him.

"How can you manage to knock-out and capture _two_ Avengers and still be this stupid?" he demanded, shrugging irritably at the restraining hands on his arms. "Listen. You grabbed us. I get it. We're done with that bit, you can stop shoving. Let me tell you what happens next, because it's pretty damn obvious you're not on top of a plan here. You're going to start making demands, right? Cash, tech, surrender, whatever. Let me tell you how that's going to go for you. Who knows? You might even get what you want."

Steve couldn't work out if their hostage-takers really were stupid – letting Tony talk was hardly ever a good idea – or if they simply couldn't get a word in because he really was in full flow.

"Option one," Tony carried on without pause. "It's all about the money. Fine. Not like you'd be the first. Everyone likes their little luxuries right? No problem. Stark Industries will pay a not unreasonable sum for my safe return. It's still cheaper than hiring a whole new R&D pool to replace me. Hell, they'll probably even throw in for the good Captain here. That's just the kind of warm, fuzzy, community-focussed company we are now. They will _not_ negotiate on price or handover conditions and they won't pay for damaged goods, so if that's your play you'd better start working on a good cover story about how I got this wonderfully colourful smack in the face."

He paused but only apparently to draw breath – he didn't seem to expect an answer yet.

"Option two: Industrial espionage for ten. You think you can make me tell you passwords, access codes, systems stuff. You probably can – I dislike broken kneecaps as much as the next guy, but they won't be any use to you because all of that stuff will have been changed or revoked once the kidnapping protocols went into effect. That will have happened right about now because my AI will have known that I was unconscious at the point the suit was opened, will have coupled that information to the fact I have neither reported in nor turned up at a hospital, SHIELD base or Avengers facility and will therefore have concluded that whoever removed me from the suit did not mean me well. Since it's a matter of record that Cap was with me, the same will go for his access."

This time he did pause long enough to scan from face to face. Steve watched as well but they were giving nothing away. Instead they watched impassively as Tony resumed his recitation.

"Option three: You think you can make me build something for you. Again that's a maybe but you'd better have someone at least as good as me on hand to check that's what I'm really doing because it didn't work out so well for the last lot who tried."

He took a deep, exaggerated breath.

"Aaannnd, option four: You're after some other information from one or both of us. Presumably something dramatic and lethal since you're the ones waving guns and making threats. And regardless of the aforementioned kneecaps it's a fact that torture doesn't work nearly as well for reliable information as people think. People get incoherent quickly. They lie if they think it's what the person hurting them wants to hear and I've stood in front of the press enough times to be a pretty good liar. Plus you're on a ticking clock. You think no one's looking for us? We're the Avengers. We're targets. You think we don't know it? You think we don't have ways of finding one another?"

Tony grinned at them. That infuriating, shiny grin. "So did I miss anything?" He looked again from face to face. "Actually, which one of you even _is_ the organ grinder?"

"I am," one of their captors stepped forward, a bulky, scowling man whose cultured tones seemed incongruous with his brutish appearance and the gun in his hand. "And you've clearly given the matter some thought. Too much. What if I were to keep it straightforward and simply shoot you if you don't do as you're asked?"

Tony rolled his eyes. "Really? That's not lesson one in creepy-badguy school? You never start with your final offer in a negotiation. Where do you go from there? I say no. You kill me. We both lose. That's not how this goes or we'd be done already."

"And if I ask you the questions and shoot _him_ if you give me any trouble?"

The self-declared leader of the group jerked the weapon in Steve's direction but Tony actually scoffed aloud this time. "Again: _Really_? Trade one life for the damage you could do with what I could do? Nope. Don't play trolley-car ethics with me, Pop-Eye. I won't just throw the switch, I'll damn well automate it."

The reference was lost on Steve but not, apparently on their captor.

"Do I take it then that you refuse to cooperate?"

"I just used an awful lot of words to say so, didn't I? Cash – yeah, fine, whatever, don't really care. Anything else – nope."

The large man surveyed him a moment longer. "I believe we can persuade you otherwise."

Tony shrugged as best he could with his arms held behind him. "Maybe. Probably. Can you do it fast enough? Tick tock – the Avengers are coming."

"We'd better begin then." The mild tone didn't change as the man stepped back, lowering the gun with one hand and beckoning with the other. His replacement was smaller by at least a foot, wiry, and swinging a baseball bat loosely from one hand. Tony looked away, finally falling silent. At least until the first blow came down across his right knee.

Steve yelled in protest as well, swearing and not even sure if he was swearing on Tony's behalf or _at __him_ in frustration, because it was clearly his rambling on about it which had brought on that particular target.

Tony glanced at him, startled even through the pain and looked about to say something until the next blow landed across his ribs and he doubled over as the men holding him released his arms to let him fall.

It didn't last long really. Tony was still conscious, though no longer responding with anything more than gasps, when the lump of a leader raised his hand for a stop and looked down.

"Think about it," he advised before turning and leading the rest of them out of the room. The door closed with a very definite thud.

"Tony!" There was a blank, dazed look on his face that Steve didn't like at all and he moved towards him involuntarily, only to come up short as his face almost struck the transparent barrier between them. "Tony. C'mon. You still with me here?"

For a moment there was nothing. Then, slowly, Tony flopped himself over onto his back and looked up.

"Sadly, yes."

Steve sighed in relief because although Tony's voice was abnormally quiet, there was enough sardonic intent in the words to reassure him.

Tony mopped his face with a hand then stopped, pulling his hand away and looking at it thoughtfully, wriggling his fingers then patting himself down warily to feel for broken bones.

"Did they say what they wanted?" Tony drew his knees up cautiously, grimacing and trailing his fingers cautiously over the rapidly swelling joints. "I may have missed some of the fine detail."

Steve shook his head. "No." He frowned. "That seem odd to you? After all the threats beforehand?"

Tony made a non-committal noise. "And they didn't ask you anything either?"

"No," Steve said again.

"So not we're not doing, 'beat on the standard-issue human so the super-soldier talks' either." He sat up slowly, and slid along the floor to curl over the bucket in the corner, looking half inclined to throw up. Instead he spoke again. "And if it's money they're after, they didn't believe me about the damaged goods rule."

"You really have that?" Steve couldn't help himself asking.

Tony tipped his head to look at him. "Yeah. I don't exactly want to encourage this sort of thing." He leaned back, lifted his hands again and surveyed them. He ran one hand over his jaw. "They didn't actually break anything. And they didn't go after anything that'd stop me talking or working. So they want information or they want stuff built. Probably."

Steve grimaced at this matter-of-fact analysis. "You seem to be taking this very calmly."

There was a pause which was just a fraction too long. Then Tony got back to his feet and hobbled over to examine the door, then to test the tap in the opposite wall.

"Do I? Good. Let's go with that." He flicked a finger against the barrier.

Steve stared at him as the grid-lines flickered and spread across the transparency where he'd touched it. There was something odd in that answer. Something odd in Tony's expression, but before he could resolve it, Tony had looked away. Deliberately. And under the circumstances Steve didn't really feel he could press for an explanation.

He thought about it though, because if he'd been asked beforehand, he would have expected Tony to be a downright liability as a prisoner. Would have expected him to be restless, impatient, and for his ever-running mouth to over-ride whatever slim sense of self-preservation he actually had. He would have expected Tony to be as reckless in captivity as he was in every other field.

But he wasn't, Steve realised over the next few days. Instead he was watchful. Composed and wary.

Steve could almost see the cogs turning as Tony's attention tracked their captors every time they appeared. He chattered and shot off sarcastic remarks at them, but seemed to know exactly where the line was between distracting and antagonising them. Which questions he could get away with asking even if they weren't answered, and which would get him hurt worse than they were already doing. Where the line was between calculated non-cooperation and gratuitous defiance.

* * *

"Get down on your knees." The man who'd had the baseball bat gave Tony's shoulder a shove.

"No." Tony's voice was quiet and steady, but he didn't struggle when he was forced down anyway. Two pairs of hands on his shoulders, a third person kicking the backs of his knees. He didn't stifle the sharp cry as the grotesquely swollen right knee hit the floor.

"Hands behind your back."

"No."

It was barely a gasp of a refusal and they were pulled there anyway of course. Three against one, there was no other possible outcome and Tony must have expected it and he didn't fight it. They tied him at wrist and ankle, looped another rope between them before a boot between the shoulder blades sent him crashing down face-first, hands and feet drawn up behind him. They pulled his shoes off and swung a short length of hosepipe through the air fast enough to whistle, but not yet impacting.

"They say the soles of the feet are terribly sensitive you know. You should think about cooperating."

Tony ignored this. "Just don't lose my loafers there, Pinch Hitter, they're custom. Would never normally have worn them in the suit y'know. Bit of a rush job. Wasn't strictly supposed to be involved. Stuff happens. You know how it is." His voice was a mumble with his face still pressed against the floor, but it the wiry man hesitated, and walked round to be back in his line of sight anyway, turning the expensive leather over in his hands.

"Well, maybe I'll keep them then." He smirked and held them up considering. "They look like they just might fit. And it's not like you're going to be walking anywhere for long time."

"Feel free." Tony ignored that threat too and lifted his head an inch. "Y'know I could set you up with the supplier, I'm sure he'd give you a good price, what with you being such a close acquaintance and everything."

It bought maybe thirty seconds, certainly no more than a minute's delay before the blows came, but Tony did it every time. Bought time. Every time. Even if it was only seconds.

* * *

_Practised_. That was the word, Steve realised eventually. That was the defining feature of Tony's demeanour. An air of having long since worked out what it took to survive coupled with a single-minded determination to do so.

Steve wondered what was missing from the file on Tony's three months in Afghanistan. Wondered how many incidents it took for a company to decide they needed an official kidnapping policy.

They didn't discuss it.

There were no pep talks.

Tony didn't need telling to eat or rest, even when he was clearly in pain and it was the last thing he probably wanted to do. Even when he was visibly forcing the too-infrequent food down or obviously lying awake with his eyes shut under the lights that never went out.

In the long, slack, dead time between visits from their captors, he speculated about their motives , the details of their cell, where they might be. When he temporarily ran out of ideas he persuaded Steve to play Twenty Questions, promising to avoid the gaps in his knowledge of pop culture or recent history.

In return Steve taught him parlour games from his childhood – he'd been sick often enough to have spent endless hours playing word and memory games from his bed.

* * *

"The minister's cat is an agile cat."

"That forcefield's based on alien tech. The minister's cat is an agile, bioengineered cat."

"Bio… Tony, for goodness sake..."

"What?"

"Fine. So who has access to tech like that?"

"Me." Tony drummed his fingers against the floor. "SHIELD-as-was. And thus presumably Hydra. Whatever scavengers came out of that whole debacle." He leaned his head back wearily, staring at a barrier he couldn't see. "The minister's cat."

Steve blinked.

"Come on," Tony prompted. "You can't have forgotten already. The minister's cat is an agile, bioengineered cat."

Steve rolled his eyes. "Yeah, okay. The minister's cat is an agile, bioengineered, _cocky_ cat."

"I feel maligned." Tony mumbled. "I'm being maligned. Captain America is maligning me while I'm already wounded and ailing. And the minister's cat is an agile, bioengineered, cocky, dichromatic cat."

"Dichromatic," Steve muttered. "Tony, I swear I'm going to batter you myself when we get out of here." He knew that was right on the edge of good taste, but was certain he could get away with it and sure enough it drew a soft, slightly wheezy laugh.

"Oooohhh, _harsh_ from the good Captain. C'mon, tell me more about this damn cat."

Steve went with 'elegant' next but lost it completely by the time they reached N-is-for-neotenic from Tony and let him have the round, especially since his voice had been getting fainter even as his vocabulary got more outlandish.

Steve had expected him to sleep then, but Tony kept talking, though his voice was down to a whisper. He'd been talking about the forcefield again, about options for interfering with it or the power-lines in the wall it must need to run, or the electronic locking on the door or the lighting, but stopped without warning and said, "Why are they letting us do this?"

"Do what?"

"This. Talk. Play games. Be not-tied-up for that matter." Tony stared up at the blank ceiling.

"They don't ask me anything." He frowned. "Do they?"

"No," Steve said because they'd both noticed this and they'd already discussed it.

"No," Tony repeated. "And that's a game too, isn't it. Must be. Mind game. They want me to volunteer… They think if it gets bad enough I'll volunteer to cooperate. That _I'll_ ask _them_ what they want me to do. That I'll promise them things before I even know what they want."

"Maybe," Steve said, reluctant to commit to more than that, though it sounded all too plausible.

"They think it's a way of making sure I don't just _say_ 'yes'then do something different."

"Maybe."

Tony wasn't listening to his answers, he was thinking aloud.

"They know I've done that before. So why leave us here together? I know why they've got to let me rest, eat, drink, sleep, all that. They can't keep up the hitting and the shouting and rest of it 24/7 without killing me or making me useless, but why give me this? Where's the isolation, where's the-" Tony eyes snapped back to Steve's and there was sudden and total panic there. "They're going to kill you. They're going to wait until I'm leaning on this good and hard then they're going to kick it away."

Steve shook his head because Tony had plucked that notion right out of thin air, but the thought had clearly shocked him out of all his hard-clung-to self possession.

"Tony, you're guessing. They're just trying to get to you. Keep it together."

Tony stared at him, eyes so wide that Steve could see the whites all the way around.

"You don't know what they're thinking." Steve kept talking, trying to force him to think logically. "There could be any reason they've kept us both here. Maybe it's the only place they think is secure. Like you said, they've got two Avengers locked up – can't be many good options for that. Maybe they think we're both worth more alive. If they were going to kill me they could have any time. Would have been safer to a lot sooner. And if it's mind games they're into, it could as easily be aimed as me as you. You think it's easy to watch them-"

He stopped abruptly. That line of reasoning was _not_ helpful or comforting.

"It's been over a week, Tony," he said instead. "The others will find us. It can't be long."

Tony nodded.

"Yeah," he said and his voice was calm again, though unpleasantly flat. "Not long."

He slid himself sideways from where he was leaning against the wall and laid down, curled on his side and running the fingers of one hand up and down the inside of his opposite forearm.

Steve watched, wishing he wouldn't. Hoping anyone else watching would dismiss it as a nervous fidget.

Tony had been certain that even the faint signal from the bioengineered implants under his skin, which he used to control the suit, would be traceable. He'd worked out the search pattern ages ago as a precaution, he said. And though it was slow – the signal was faint and the searchers had be be within a decent proximity – it worked. A week was _almost_ long enough. The search pattern ought be be nearly three quarters complete. They would have to be really unlucky to be in the absolutely last possible sector.

But it Tony kept pawing at the transmitters he might clue in their captors that there was something more going on.

"Tony," Steve said, aloud. "Think of something."

"Huh?"

"It's my turn to guess. Think of something."

"I'm tired, Steve."

"I know. One more round."

Tony sighed as he looked up but his hands stilled as he thought about it.

"Okay." He smiled suddenly. Unexpectedly. Weary and stubborn and glassy-eyed but grinning anyway. "It's a doozy. Person."

"Okay. Is it a man?"

"Yeah."

"Are they famous?"

"Yep."

They were interrupted not much more than halfway through Steve's guesses and he watched the mixture of hope and fear war on Tony's face until it was obviously their captors, not their friends behind the door, and both emotions were forced aside by the same wary, increasingly ragged self-control.

"You're early." Tony spoke first, grabbing promptly at even that much command of the conversation. "That mean we get lunch early too?"

"It's suppertime, wise guy."

Tony faltered, glancing for confirmation at Steve, who'd flinched before he could stop himself because it _was_ evening by his guess and if Tony was losing track of time it didn't bode well for his state of mind.

"Oh." Tony steadied himself with one hand, half-lying half-sitting on the floor but looked back and pressed on. "Well... I've been known to eat waffles at midnight so, whatever. Drives Pepper mad, she says-"

"Shut up."

"Yeah, says that too, but-" Tony broke off as the one he'd been calling 'Pinch Hitter' darted across the room towards him. Instead he raised his free hand placatingly and turned his head away just enough to relinquish eye contact. It was enough to forestall the threat and Tony kept his eyes on the floor, not looking at the man leaning over him until he grabbed his raised arm.

"Stand up."

Tony shook his head minutely, not lifting his eyes from the floor.

"I can't." His voice was carefully level, but Steve could see the miserable disgust on his face at the admission.

"You _can't_?" A shove and Tony fell the rest of the way back to the floor. "You're not even going to try? After I was so careful not to break anything? You're just going to cower there on your ass? _Tony Stark?_ Iron Man? Pathetic."

Tony closed his eyes but this time the lack of resistance only earned him a furious kick in the small of the back.

"You are going to cooperate sooner or later. Think about it."

No further blows came and after a moment, apparently waiting for a reaction from Tony which never came, they were left alone again.

"Tony?" Steve said before the silence got too long. "Still with me?" It had become a refrain. Better than the obvious nonsense of asking if either of them were 'okay'.

"Sixteen," Tony said in answer.

"Tony?" Steve asked, wary at the non sequitur. Had Tony really started to lose his grip?

"You've had sixteen of your questions. I'm gonna win this one."

Steve gave a gasp of startled laughter, never more grateful for Tony's utter mulish stubbornness even if it was delivered in a whisper.

"Jeez, Tony, I can't even remember what I asked."

"Then I'm definitely winning."

"Okay, okay." Steve paced up and down the length of the dividing barrier, trying to concentrate and summon some sort of recall. "It's a person, they're famous, been on the TV but not because they're an actor or politician. Because they were in the news." He frowned. There'd been other things, lots of them, that was only six. Tony was smirking but all Steve could think of were the injuries that smile was ignoring. If help didn't reach them soon it was going to be a problem.

"Is it a superhero?"

"That is way cooler than 'enhanced'. Yeah. Absolutely."

"One of ours? An Avenger?"

"Yes and Yes."

"That's not two questions, Tony!"

"Sounded like two."

"It was one."

Tony made a sceptical noise. "Okay. An Avenger: Yes. Broadly speaking. Close enough. Two questions left."

Steve stared at him. Tony's eyes were closed but he was still smiling faintly and Steve had a growing suspicion as to why.

"Is it the sort of person who would pick _themselves_ in a game like this?"

Tony's eyes flew open in mingled dismay and amusement.

"Uh, yeah. I cannot tell a lie. Pretty much. Yeah."

"Tony..."

"You win!"

"You are unbelievable."

Tony smiled again though it looked way more tired this time. "When possible."

His eyes started to close, then stopped. He looked back at Steve.

"That didn't last long enough."

Steve frowned, not seeing the relevance. "The game? We ran out of questions, Tony. You want to guess next?"

"Not the game. That last little visit." Tony curled over onto his side but kept talking. "They didn't ask anything, they didn't even really do much. They just..."

Steve couldn't decide whether to interrupt or not, whether the process of trying to work out their captors' motives and methods was a useful distraction or just contributing to whatever psychological tactics they were using.

"They just wanted me to know I couldn't _stop_ them doing it."

The door banged open without warning and Tony snapped his head round in alarm before taking a shaking breath through gritted teeth and glaring silently up past his usual assailants, at their looming, incongruously polite boss.

"We've concluded a change of tactics is in order, Mr Stark."

"Yeah?" Tony's voice shook on the word, but in the next breath he had it mostly back under control. "So get monologuing and tell me all about it, Emily Post."

"I'm reliably informed that actions speak louder than words."

He nodded to his usual three guards who strode past him. Two of them grabbed Tony's arms and the third manhandled a large cloth bag over his head, pulling the drawstring close at his neck.

Tony jerked in their grip as though he'd been electrocuted and Steve threw himself against the barrier in involuntary sympathy because there was something alarmingly out of proportion in Tony's reaction. Something panic-stricken, the bag fluttering against his face as he audibly panted, noisy breaths as they forced him onto his back and held his arms down.

Their boss paced around them, then crouched down at Tony's shoulder.

"I'm not going to 'monologue', as you put it, Mr Stark, but I do want you to listen. Listen and think about your situation."

The third guard, 'Pinch Hitter', returned to the doorway and re-entered the room with a coil of hose over his shoulder. He connected one end to the tap, gave the other to his boss and returned to stand with his hand on the faucet. Waiting.

Tony turned his head restlessly from side to side, clearly trying to make sense of the sounds.

Steve's stomach roiled. Would it be better to call out a warning, or would that only make the anticipation worse? Before he could decide, Tony had spoken up himself, though his voice was shaking in earnest now.

"What are you-"

"Ah ah ah." The mild voice was in total contrast to the hand that clamped down over where Tony's mouth must be beneath the bag. "You're listening not talking right now." The other hand brought the hose closer, right up beside his head. "Listen."

Across the room the tap went on. There was a second's pause as the water flowed through and then Tony jack-knifed as the sound reached him and the cold water spread under his shoulder. He twisted wildly, squirming his head sideways enough to speak around the smothering hand on his face. He could barely get words out through the clear panic, but the one that was intelligible was 'no'.

"No?" The voice was still mild and quiet and Steve was going to smash its owner to pieces for doing this once he got out of here.

"You don't like the water?" The man stood up and put his thumb over the hose end, turning the steady flow into a hard spray which he ran up and down over the bag until it was clinging to Tony's face. "But it doesn't hurt does it? Not like your feet, surely? It's really not even that much water."

He let the flow resume and played it over Tony's mouth and nose, following his movements as he thrashed his head to evade it, incoherent even before he inhaled enough of a mouthful to make him snap his head back against the floor with a sickening crunch.

"Hold his head. We can't have that clever brain spread all over the floor, can we?"

"Please!" Tony gasped in the moment's delay that this rearranging of restraint took. "Please. Please. Don't. Not. I can't."

His words were disjointed, broken, but being listened to. The hose was held loosely in his tormentor's hand for the moment, the water running idly over his chest instead of his face. Tony's breath hitched anyway as he fought for a full sentence.

"Haven't even told me what you want!"

"Yes we have. Weren't you listening?"

The hose moved and water flowed over Tony's neck, moving back towards his face. He writhed as though it was scalding instead of soaking him.

"No! Wait! Wait. Please. Wait. Thinking."

"Think faster. You're supposed to be good at that. You _do_ remember what it is we want."

"Cooperate!" Tony all but shrieked, as the water reached his face again and he cut himself off, choking and spluttering.

"That's right. You were listening after all. Are you feeling _ready _to cooperate?"

Strangled convulsions were the only answer and Steve slammed his fists furiously against the barrier.

"How the hell is he supposed to answer if you don't let him breathe!"

No one even looked in his direction but after maybe ten more seconds the hose was lowered again and Tony coughed until he was shaking.

"Well?"

The pause was long enough for Steve to actually wonder if Tony still had one more bit of stubborn to throw at them, but instead his voice came almost as a whisper.

"Yes."

Another pause, and then the hose was raised again.

"I don't believe you."

"No..." Tony's horrified, disbelieving protest was cut off by the water.

This time when it stopped the hose was withdrawn all the way and the bag pulled off. Tony didn't move, didn't even blink in the sudden light, eyes rolled back in his head, breath coming in frantic, uneven gasps.

"I suggest you spend the time before our next visit thinking about how you're going to convince me of your good faith."

And they left, taking hose and bag with them and leaving Tony shaking on the floor.

"Tony." Steve had to force himself to speak, his own voice hoarse from yelling. "You with me?"

No answer. No sound except the noisy, too-fast gasps for breath. No reaction on his face. No _Tony_ in that empty-eyed gaze.

"C'mon. Tony. Talk to me. Gimme something. Come on. It's my turn at Twenty Questions y'know. Don't you dare check out and leave me hanging." He was rambling and knew it, but anything was better than the silence, than giving up and leaving Tony to whatever fear-filled place his mind had taken him.

"Come on, Tony," he repeated louder. "One more game. My turn. Come on."

He was almost shouting but was rewarded with the flicker of a reaction – a glance that was almost a flinch.

"That's it. I know you can hear me. Bet you just don't want to give me the chance to win one back. Come on. Bring your best guesses. I'm thinking of a..." Steve cast about desperately as imagination failed him. "Uh… an animal."

Tony drew a huge racking breath and coughed violently.

"Cat." The word sounded like it had been dragged over from the far side of hell but it was something and Steve sagged in relief."

"Nope and that's not the game, Tony. Come on. Concentrate. You've got to work it out, not guess. Come on. Yes-no questions."

Tony's chest heaved. "Four." It took several more breaths to get another word out. "Legs."

"No. Not four legs." Steve forced his own voice back to calmness. "Good start though. Next?"

Tony groped at his throat as though he could force more air in that way. "Wings."

"Yes."

Tony closed his eyes and panted, holding up one finger in a clear 'wait' gesture. Steve waited, wondering whether trying to force him to talk was a bad idea after all.

But it was working. The questions came slowly but each question _did_ come easier than the last and after half an hour when Tony managed, "Is it known for often using a form of locomotion other than flying, such as swimming or running?" Steve was relieved enough to not even argue whether that was a fair question.

By the time Tony had won the round he was shivering with cold instead of in reaction. The room wasn't exactly freezing but was definitely too cold to be lying around in wet clothes.

"I'm never playing this game with you again when we get out," Steve said, still focussed on distraction. "You're too good at it."

"It's all in the questions," Tony mumbled. "Binary search algorithm. Halve and halve."

Steve frowned, making no sense of this.

Tony glanced at his face and gave a single gasp of a laugh before sobering.

"Don't think I'm gonna win this one though." His eyes lingered on the door.

Steve sighed. "Tony-"

"Don't!" A flash of exhausted anger flared and died in Tony's voice. "I know what I can and can't… And I can't. Not the water. I just… It's like… They… Before... I can't. You saw that."

"It's okay, Tony," Steve spoke over him. "Honestly. It's okay. That wasn't the lead in to a pep talk. I promise. I get it." He hesitated. "I was actually going to say..." He paused. "Look, Tony. The others will come. It could be any time. And they'll deal with whatever they find. They're good at it. _We're_ good at it. Maybe you should just do what this lot want. For now. We can deal with it."

Tony stared at him and then laughed again. Breathless and giggly, almost hysterical.

"Yeah? Like, 'oh well, after all it's not the first time we've had to smash up some horrific, lethal thing that Stark built?' S'true I suppose. We've had practise. _I've_ had practise. Even before you guys. My tech. My fault. What's one more, right?"

"Tony..."

"I said _don't_! You think I want your blessing on caving to these maniacs? That doesn't help! I already-" He was breathing too fast again and broke off to gasp. "I already… They don't believe me! They don't believe me and they're gonna keep-"

Again the door banged open and Tony jumped violently, scrambling to sit up and slide himself further away. He glanced up at Steve, frantic and wide-eyed.

"Time?"

It was barely recognisable as a question but Steve shook his head.

"Not more than an hour. They're messing with you. Tell them to go to hell."

A flicker of a smile crossed Tony's face at the cursing, but it was replaced quickly by sheer blind panic as he was grabbed again, bag forced over his head and feet kicked out from under him. He went down on his back hard enough to smack his head into the floor once again. For a moment he went completely limp and Steve thumped the barrier again, in helpless alarm. If they put the water in his face when he was unconscious they'd undoubtedly kill him.

"Tony!" he yelled.

'_Tony!'_ There was an answering cry, almost below the level of hearing. Genuinely below for normal people perhaps since no one else had reacted. Their captors' full attention was on Tony who was conscious again if he had been out at all and was thrashing fit to dislocate limbs. Shouting in unadulterated desperation, a muddled mix of pleas and promises and dreadful choking, drowning, sobbing gasps.

Just as Steve had concluded that what he'd heard was some strange echo – that or this place was cracking him up too – there was another shout. And it _was_ a shout, he could tell somehow even though the volume was diminished by distance and locked doors.

"_Stark! Rogers! You here? Give us a steer if you're here!"_

Steve went limp himself for a split sheet in sheer relief and then drew breath to bellow back. He'd yelled before he'd planned any words at all and what came out was wordless, a roar of frustrated fury, adding his considerable volume to Tony's incoherent cries.

Perhaps it was mistaken for distress because no one even turned to look before the door on Tony's side slammed off its hinges and across the room and Vision had flown through, Natasha at his heels.

In under a second they'd absorbed the scene in front of them. Vision surged forward, dragging two of the men away from Tony, one to a hand and flinging them in opposite directions to crash against the wall. Natasha had leapt past him in the same moment, dodging the flying bodies and tackling the third man who hit the floor with a very final sounding crash.

She rolled back to her feet almost next to Steve, frowned at the barrier, and glanced over her shoulder to see Vision kneeling beside Tony, trying to get him to stop struggling long enough to get the bag off his head. She let them get on with it, and left the cell to open the door on Steve's side.

He spared her a quick grateful smile and hurried past her, only to hesitate as he reached the other side because Tony _hadn't_ stopped struggling, or shouting, and in the absence of anyone still holding him was lashing out blindly with fists and feet.

Vision caught one wrist without effort as a wildly flung blow hit him in the side of the head. "Please stop struggling. I am endeavouring-" He ignored the other arm as it flashed past his face. "-to help."

Steve crossed the room in two paces as Tony thrashed, kicking out in spite of his injured feet and clawing at Vision's hand. The wet bag was plastered against his face by his heaving breaths and he was clearly beyond hearing them or processing that this was a rescue, not some new assault.

"Tony!" Steve dropped down beside Vision just as he caught Tony's other wrist. For a moment Tony went rigid in panic and Steve took the moment to reach for the bag. The drawstring was sodden and knotted tight and Tony started thrashing again the instant Steve touched it.

Then Natasha was at his shoulder as well, lowering her hand from her earpiece and offering a knife to cut the string. Steve took it but Tony was moving way too much to risk it anywhere near his neck.

"Tony. Come on. You with me? Calm down." There was no response and before Steve could think of anything else to try, Natasha had touched his arm.

"Just hold his head, I'll do it. It's ugly but we can't stay here, and he's going to suffocate himself if he keeps on breathing like that."

Steve grimaced but nodded and handed back the knife.

"Okay, Tony, just-"

"Let him go."

It was Rhodey's voice, electronically amplified though the War Machine armour and everyone except Tony looked up.

"We're trying to help," Steve dodged another flailing kick that would almost certainly have hurt Tony worse than him if it had landed.

"I can see that," Rhodey said. "But you're scaring the crap out of him. You need to back the hell off." He opened the face piece and looked at Natasha. "You said he was injured, you didn't say it was this."

She shook her head. "I didn't think he'd want it broadcast." She glanced back at the others. "Rhodey's right. Let go."

Vision gave Rhodey a considering look and then let go before Steve could decide whether he himself agreed or not. Tony half rolled, half slid away from them in the same second. He wound up on his backside against the wall, shaking hands raised to ward them off, in an ineffective parody of the gesture he used to flick the repulsor gauntlets between flight and fire mode.

Rhodey followed more slowly, his voice carefully light and casual.

"Hey, Tony. You make me come looking for you for in all the fun places don't you, buddy? You ready to blow this joint? Literally if you like, the dump deserves to go sky high."

He was close enough now to put an armoured hand on Tony's arm. Not trying to move it, not even closing his hand, just resting it there. Tony grabbed at it in alarm, but stopped when his fingertips met the metal. He curled his fingers, nails catching against the joins in the interlocking plates.

"Bit late to get grabby, pal," Rhodey kept talking, light and easy, a reassuring smile on his face even though Tony couldn't see it. "You might have built the thing but this suit's mine for good now. So you ready to get the hell out of dodge, or you want to stay and carry on trying to kick Cap and Vision in the balls some more? If robots have balls. Please don't make me think about robot balls."

"Rhodey." Tony took a huge wracking breath between the syllables but all the tension went out of his body.

"Yeah. Me." Rhodey moved to prop Tony up as he reeled.

"Steve?"

"Right here," Steve said promptly.

"He's here too." Rhodey confirmed in the same second. "He's fine. We found you. Your tracking program is too damn slow but it works. Now are you going to let me get that thing off your head?"

Tony's own hands went to his neck instead but started shaking all over again when he couldn't immediately release the drawstring.

"Stop, Tony. I'm going to cut it, okay? Hold still."

Rhodey twisted his wrist, and the armour folded back around his hand. He gestured for Natasha's knife and cautiously, mindful of the fact that Tony was still shivering violently, managed to cut the drawstring and hauled the bag up and off his head.

Tony slumped forward so abruptly that Rhodey had to grab him to stop him smacking face-first into the armour.

"Easy. There's plenty of air. There's no more water. Breathe slow."

"Can't." Tony's eyes were bloodshot, screwed half shut against the light.

"Yeah, you can." Rhodey's voice was brisker now. "You've done it before. You know you can. And we need to get out of here. Come on. Head in the game."

Tony gasped, held his breath a moment, then released it in a series of stuttering pants before trying again.

"Good." Rhodey said, as Tony leaned heavily against him, fighting to breathe steadily. "Good job. We're going to carry you, okay? You hurt anywhere that's going to make that hard?"

"Don't know."

"I don't think so." Steve cut across. "They were… careful… in a way. They wanted something specific."

For a moment the fiercely controlled calm in Rhodey's eyes flashed into fury.

"I can carry him," Steve went on before he could be asked for an explanation he didn't yet want to give.

Tony mumbled something vaguely protesting of which the only coherent word was 'dignified'.

And then they were running. Steve blindly followed Natasha, completely disoriented. Somewhere along the way Clint fell in with them and exchanged a nod with Natasha, and somewhere near the exit Wanda joined them, the destruction around what had been the main route in and out of the building explaining her role in proceedings without any explanation needed.

No one spoke until they were out and running for the Quinjet. They hurried up the ramp, Clint, and Natasha carrying on into the cockpit as the others came to a stop. They divided tasks almost unconsciously, collecting first aid kit, pulling out the makeshift cot, ramping up the internal heating since Tony was still shivering.

Steve lowered him onto the cot but almost immediately Tony was fighting to get up, eyes wide in panic, thrashing to right himself.

"Tony…" Steve tried. "It's okay. We're on the Quinjet, we're going home, you're okay."

"Not on his back." Rhodey handed off the first aid kit he'd been carrying and pulled Tony the rest of the way upright. "Okay, Tony. You tell us. You want to sit up or lie on your side?"

"Sit."

"Right." Rhodey heaved him further up the bed and untangled his arms. "How about changing into dry clothes?"

Tony nodded without meeting his eyes and, to Steve's surprise, Rhodey's voice turned brusque.

"Hey, I'm talking to you, man."

Tony looked up and the shocked indignation that replaced the humiliated misery on his face stilled the protest that Steve had been about to make on his behalf because it was _was_ more like himself.

"Yes, mom." And now there was audible sarcasm even in Tony's still breathless tone. "I would like-" He couldn't get a whole sentence out without an extra breath but he did finish it. "-to change clothes."

"Good," Rhodey matched his tone perfectly. "'Cause what you're in, frankly, is getting a bit ripe now the heat's up." He glanced over at Steve. "And, no offense, Cap, but you're not exactly fresh as a daisy either."

Steve raised his eyebrows, but gave in and headed for the cargo lockers, leaving Rhodey to retrieve the first aid kit and get some painkillers into Tony. There was something practised about that interaction too, he realised. Rhodey had known at once how to call Tony back, both out of blind panic and numb misery. When to coax versus when to push, what worked. Hadn't even seemed surprised by it. It made his own frantic efforts with the game look haphazard at best.

Steve hauled open the locker door and rummaged amid the mismatched assortment of duffels and daysacks. They all kept a go-bag in various strategic locations, including the jet. He quickly fished out his own ratty gym bag and Tony's probably-designer leather holdall and brought them back.

Rhodey was digging in another locker for blankets. Wanda had left, presumably to join Clint and Natasha but Vision had taken up station at the foot of the cot with an air of one who intended to stand guard until the end of days if required.

Steve deposited Tony's bag on the deck next to the cot. Tony glanced down at it then up at Steve.

"Thanks."

"No problem. D'you need any help?"

Tony made a face. "No. I'm all grown up, thanks. I can dress myself." His breathing was normal enough to get the whole sarcastic sentence out this time but what little colour had returned to his face drained away again the second he bent over to reach down for the bag.

"Uh." He flopped back, gasping. "Actually. You could just. Chuck my clothes up here."

Rhodey picked that minute to return with a towel. He looked at Tony's pale face and clenched teeth and Steve pulling clothes out of the bag.

"Oh you already decided you didn't want help then needed it after all, huh? I won't offer then."

Tony gave him a glare without any real feeling in it. "I can dress. Myself," he repeated. "What I can't do is stupid yoga moves to get at the damn bag."

As if to prove the point, he pulled his sodden t-shirt up and over his head and flung it on the floor in one movement, that left him panting and Steve and Rhodey staring, appalled, at the sheer array of bruises, in a week's worth of shades, that covered his entire torso.

"Towel," Tony demanded, though when Rhodey handed it over he barely more than touched it before pulling on the oversized hoodie that Steve passed up. He squirmed out of his trousers and underpants without a word, seemingly more embarrassed about their reactions to the marks than the fact he was now naked from the waist down.

"Jeez, Tony," Rhodey said.

"What?" Tony smirked, apparently choosing to believe that Rhodey's dismay was at his utter absence of modesty rather than his injuries. "Afraid I'm going to show up the rest of the team?"

"Put some pants on, Stark," Steve said, striving for his best 'captain' voice and almost certainly failing because it was just such a relief to have Tony sounding like Tony, however brittle a facade that probably was right now.

Tony grinned but by the time he'd complied he was trembling with fatigue or pain or both, and was more sprawled than sitting. He wriggled awkwardly down the cot until he was curled on his side and blinked wearily.

"Maybe I'll just take a little nap here for a minute."

"Sounds a plan," Rhodey agreed. "I'm going to put some ice-packs round your feet and knee, okay? Try and get the swelling down. We've got about two and a half hours flight time to run."

"Whatever." Tony was already half asleep but abruptly his eyes flew back open. "Wait. To where?"

"Back to the compound," Rhodey said. "Unless there's somewhere else you'd rather go?"

"Pepper," Tony said, sudden urgency breaking through the sleepiness. "Where's Pepper? Does she know-"

"She knows we found you, Tony. She's at the compound. We would have kept her in the loop anyway but she marched right up there. No one was going to argue. You want to call her?"

Tony hesitated. "How bad do I look?"

For a moment Steve couldn't understand how that could possibly be his primary concern, until Rhodey's answer explained it.

"She already knows you were hurt, Tony. You won't freak her out. She's not the freaking out type."

Tony smiled faintly. "No. Okay." He took a breath. "Okay. A spare phone's in my bag."

Steve fished it out. "Do you want to sit back up?"

"Want to: yes." Tony grimaced. "Think I _can_ without embarrassing myself: Less so. I'll stay put."

"Okay." Steve put the phone down on the edge of the cot.

"Can you all just..." Tony made shooing gesture.

"Sure." Rhodey nodded and headed for the cockpit. Vision didn't move for a moment until Tony called out to him.

"Hey. Pretty sure no one's going to jump me in here, you can stand down."

Vision smiled serenely.

"Then I shall leave you to relay our success to the Miss Potts," he said and followed Rhodey.

"Yeah," Tony muttered sceptically. "You got it. I'm feeling like the very damn pinnacle of success right now."

Steve smiled. "You should… We made it. Right?"

Tony glanced up. Steve expected a dismissive comment but was surprised once again.

"Thanks," Tony said.

Steve frowned. "What for? We both got caught and needed hauling out."

Tony curled his fingers in the edges of the blanket and looked away again.

"I know. And you getting snatched as well as me is a crappy thing to be glad about. Sorry. It's just… It would have been bad. On my own."

Steve stopped himself from saying that it had been bad enough as it was. Tony was the last person who needed that pointing out, and in any case he was still talking.

"So thanks. I guess. Thanks for the stupid games and not treating me like a flake when I'm flaking out."

Steve smiled. "Anytime. Except the games. No more games. You cheat."

"Tactics," Tony corrected, the seriousness fading from his face.

Steve shook his head. "Call Pepper."

He straightened up, retrieved his own bag and headed off with it to the far end of the cabin to change. By the time he'd shrugged gratefully into a clean sweat suit and recrossed the cabin, Tony was curled on his side, eyes half shut, the phone projecting the video call a few inches from his face, his voice barely above a murmur.

Steve headed forward. Clint was flying with Natasha in the copilot's place and Wanda on the jump-seat. Vision and Rhodey already stood looking out over their heads so Steve ventured no further than the hatchway. The cockpit was cramped with so many of them in here.

He smiled. "Tony did warn them to expect a whole mob of Avengers breaking down the door."

Natasha turned and returned the smile. "Well, y'know. It's not that we didn't like the peace and quiet, or the absence of stuff getting trashed in the gym and blown up in the workshop, but we thought we should probably avoid giving people the idea they can pick us off in ones and twos without a comeback. Snack?"

She held out a box of energy bars and Steve smiled, accepting both the food and the attempt to lighten the mood. But he was still restless.

"I'll see if Tony wants any."

Tony apparently didn't, because Tony was already asleep, phone abandoned on the edge of the cot, still projecting the 'call ended' screen into the air.

Steve picked the phone up and the projection vanished. He put it back in Tony's bag and sat down, leaned against supplies locker and rested his head back, trying to process the fact that they were really out and going home.

Tony stirred restlessly and rolled over and Steve got back up, meaning to reposition the ice-packs. Before he could move them though, Tony jerked violently even with his eyes still shut and the pained, scared sound that went with it froze Steve to the spot.

"Tony?"

But he was still asleep, unresponsive, though his fingers curled and twisted the blanket.

"Don't wake him up." Rhodey had followed him back.

Steve frowned. "He's having a nightmare."

"Yeah," Rhodey agreed. "Let him sleep anyway. He says that's better. Says he doesn't remember the ones he sleeps through."

The matter of fact tone in Rhodey's voice made Steve stare at him, getting a wry smile and a tiny shrug in response.

"He said it, not me. You do know it's not his first time round the briar patch, right?"

Steve looked back at Tony. "I'd started to work that out, yes."

"Did he tell them anything important?" Rhodey's voice was quiet but Steve's head snapped up to glare at him.

"No!"

He didn't add that Tony hadn't been given a chance to. That he might have. That he'd wanted to.

"Good," Rhodey said. "And you don't have to give me that look, _Captain_. That was a Rhodey-Tony's-Friend question, not a Colonel-Rhodes-Military-Liaison one. Tony's going to be mad enough with himself at getting the pair of you caught, without thinking he's given away information as well. I just want to know where we're at. That's all."

"He didn't get us caught! It wasn't his fault."

"I didn't say it was."

Steve frowned.

"Ididn't say it was," Rhodey repeated. "But I know Tony and by now he's thought of twenty things he could have done differently and he's going to hate that he didn't think of them sooner and he's going to hate that we all saw him in the state he was in when we found you."

"It wasn't..." Steve wasn't quite sure what he was saying, or why he felt the need to defend Tony to to Rhodey of all people. "He didn't… He had it together. More than I did, really. He had them completely worked out and he was getting through it. It was just..."

"The water, right?"

Steve nodded.

"Did they know?" Rhodey's voice had turned quietly furious and Steve stared at him.

"Know what?"

Rhodey gave him a look he couldn't interpret.

"I know damn well that Fury knows – what did he tell you about everyone else back when he brought you and Tony in? What did he tell you about how Tony ended up building that first suit?"

Steve only distantly remembered skimming the briefing pack. He'd been more interested in the in-person first impressions. Had been looking for any sign of his friend Howard in this utterly unexpected son of his and not finding it.

He shook his head. "Not much. That he was demonstrating a weapon, they were attacked – probably _with_ his own weapons and he was taken hostage. They wanted him to make them whatever it was it he was demonstrating. But he lied to them – said yes, but then built the suit instead and escaped."

"Yeah. Eventually."

"I don't..."

"He said 'no' to them. At first."

And there it was, Steve realised, the answer to what he'd wondered about the missing information from the file. The source of both that 'nothing new here, could be worse' dogged resistance and the desperate panic when things had presumably gotten a little too similar.

He glanced at Tony, sleeping silently again.

"I'm not asking out of morbid curiosity," Rhodey said. "If they knew, they could be hangers-on from the same group. If it's that, we need to know."

Steve shook his head. "I don't think so. They'd have gone right to that at the start wouldn't they? They were just looking for something that'd work."

Steve discovered his fists were clenched so tight his nails were hurting his palms and forced himself to open his hands.

"Tony thought they might be sniffing round Hydra's leavings."

Rhodey nodded. "Could be. We were chasing them around for weeks after all, base after base. They could've ditched stuff and run. Anyone with a taste for trouble could have picked that up as a start and wanted more."

Steve nodded but found he couldn't muster much interest in the 'why' of the thing. Whatever it was it would wait, or would blow up into something obvious that they would no longer need to wonder about.

His tiredness must have shown because Rhodey put a hand on his shoulder.

"A way to go yet – if you wanted to rest too, I can find something to chuck down on the floor. It's kind cramped up front. There's only the one emergency cot but..."

Steve shook his head. "I'm fine."

Rhodey didn't say a word.

"Comparatively," Steve allowed.

As if on cue, Tony twisted violently and started awake, startling a second time when his eyes lit on the two of them.

He coughed and rubbed his face.

"Were you both standing there watching me? Not like that's creepy at all, in any way."

He struggled with the blanket a moment but waved off help until he was upright.

"You don't want to go back to sleep?" Steve asked. "We can clear out. I didn't mean to… crowd you."

Tony shook his head so quickly it looked more like a shudder.

"No. I'm done. Pull up a… box? What've you got there? Did you bring enough for the whole class?"

Steve looked at the snack bar in his hand. Normally he'd have tossed it over but given the current state of Tony's coordination he instead climbed back to his feet to drop it into his lap.

Tony smiled and looked up at Rhodey. "See. That's what you don't do, you don't bring snacks."

"Uh huh." Rhodey reached into a pocket and pulled out another bar which he promptly tucked into, leaning against the bulkhead. "You just don't ask nicely enough."

Tony snorted and tore open the bar Steve had given him, shoving at least half of it into his mouth and chewing on it blissfully, eyes half closed.

"Mmmm. See that's what would have worked. Few days of assault and battery then offer chocolate. Or oaty goop with chocolate in it. Whatever this is. I'd have built them a moon base if they'd wanted one."

Steve couldn't quite manage to smile at how lightly Tony was prepared to dismiss what had happened.

"You don't have tech for a moon base, Tony," Rhodey said, around a mouthful, apparently prepared to let it pass. To let Tony wave it off as he'd waved off their help in sitting up.

"How much'll you bet me?"

Rhodey shook his head. "I won't."

"See! You know I could!" Tony gave him a giddy grin that had to be at least partly fuelled by the amount of painkillers in his system.

As did the abrupt change of topic and mood as his eyes flicked to Steve.

"You know I was lying about the trolley-car, right?"

Steve had to think for a moment. "You lost me on the reference but I can guess the gist and you were right not to trade."

"But I would have. And..." Tony stopped. "Wait, really? That's an old one isn't it? Three people tied to the track, you can throw the switch to divert it but then it'll hit someone else but only one person…? I mean the right answer's obvious but-"

"No it's not, Tony," Rhodey interrupted. "That's the point. It's _supposed_ to be difficult."

Tony shook his head. "I said 'obvious'. Not 'easy to live with'. And I couldn't have. And you weren't supposed to believe me. _They_ were supposed to believe me. You were supposed to know I wouldn't really let them shoot you."

"It's okay, Tony." Steve decided that this was absolutely not the moment for a moral debate. "You were bluffing. I believe you. It's fine. It worked."

"But you weren't supposed to think I'd let that happen. Not again. The wrong person died and I got out and you're not supposed to think I'd still let that happen." Tony's voice was confused and insistent and whatever wakefulness the nightmare had imparted was rapidly being eroded by the drugs and weariness.

"Tony," Rhodey spoke before Steve could. Perhaps this was not a new conversation after all. "Don't do that. Did Yinsen think you were the wrong person to survive?"

Tony closed his eyes.

"Did he?" Rhodey insisted.

Tony was silent for almost a full minute.

"You're a nag, Rhodes," he whispered, eventually.

"Yeah," Rhodey agreed. "Did he?"

"No." Tony looked up again, tiredly. "He told me to live and not to waste it, as you damn well know." He glanced at Steve. "And now so do you."

"You're not wasting it, Tony," Steve said firmly.

Tony rolled his head to the side to stare rather than glance at him and there was an anguished sincerity there that Steve was sure he'd never have let show in the absence of the drugs.

"Trying not to." He sighed, and it turned into a yawn and his eyelids drooped. "Sleepy."

"Yeah and drugged to the gills," Rhodey said. "It's okay, Tony. Go back to sleep."

Tony nodded then gasped as the motion make him reel.

"Yeah." He eased himself back down onto his side and let his eyes fall shut. Before Steve could wonder if he'd actually gone back to sleep again he spoke. Almost in a whisper and without opening his eyes.

"How much did I say that I shouldn't have?"

Steve knew even without Rhodey's warning gaze finding his, that Tony didn't only mean during their capture.

He shook his head, even though Tony wasn't looking.

"Nothing, Tony," he said. "Nothing at all."


End file.
